Pan Am flight attendants were keen observers of the world and the events that shaped it. Crews often flew special assignments to places where history was unfolding in real time, such as rescuing victims from disasters, evacuating refugees from war, transporting soldiers to their battle stations or on R&R, and taking religious pilgrims on spiritual journeys. All were tremendously rewarding in their own way. Perhaps the ultimate of special assignments, however, was to be selected to work the White House Press Charters accompanying the President of the United States as he flew on Air Force One.
Pan Am was no stranger to transporting members of the press to far-flung locations so they could report on world affairs. During World War II, the VIPs of the media world clamored to get a seat on the Boeing 314 flying boats. The Pan Am archives at the University of Miami’s Richter Library are packed with the names of well-known reporters and photographers, including Claire Boothe Luce, TIME-LIFE’s Margaret Bourke-White, Edward R. Murrow, and Ernie Pyle.
Yet, a sitting president did not take to the skies until January 1943 when Frankin Delano Roosevelt was transported on Pan Am’s four-engine flying boat, the Dixie Clipper, across the Atlantic to Africa for his historic Casablanca Conference. Inevitably, presidential travel of any distance evolved away from railroad cars in favor of air travel, and media executives wanted their reporters to record events wherever the president traveled. The White House turned to Pan Am for assistance in operating charters to carry the journalists.
Kari-Mette Steiner Pigmans and Sheila Riley were among the original group of flight attendants selected for press charter assignments, starting with the Kennedy administration. They quickly learned on their inaugural press trip, with President Kennedy on his five-day/four-night whirlwind through 11 states to promote conservation, that these assignments would be demanding and require keeping odd hours. Pigmans recalls fond memories: “The work was hard, but fun, with a lot of interesting reporters, and they were very courteous to us.”
Kari-Mette Steiner capturing President Kennedy with her Instamatic camera
“It was first class seating all the way through, and we always did Pan Am’s Number One service,” said Riley. To achieve such quality when flying to places that did not have a Pan Am station, catering staff accompanied the crew. Ample tableware, necessary food, liquor kits, and other provisions for future stops were loaded in the cargo hold.
Sheila Riley
Kari-Mette Steiner Pigmans remembers being treated to a tour of Air Force One: “For such a famous and important airplane, the 707 was not opulent on the inside. It was just very well-appointed and comfortable so the president and his advisers could conduct the nation’s business while going from one place to another. There was a private cabin for the president and the first lady when they needed to rest, but it was not as glamorous as one might think. It was very understated.”
On a press charter with President Kennedy to California and Hawaii, Pigmans had the honor of meeting the president. “In our conversation, he mentioned his upcoming trip to Rome and Berlin, and I commented that I had studied in Berlin,” she said. “The president asked me how to say, ‘I am a Berliner,’ and he used that now-famous phrase, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ in his historic speech.”
Most of the presidential trips were hardworking affairs consisting of photo opportunities, meetings, and the complex work of diplomacy. In June 1974, Pam Nelson White worked the charter flights for President Nixon’s trip to Belgium and the USSR. She recalls, “Typewriters were clattering all the time, even on take-off and landing. The press plane always arrived before Air Force One, so we had great viewing spots. I remember clearly seeing King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola greet the Nixons at Brussels Airport.”
Pam White in Brussels during
Richard Nixon’s state visit
In Moscow, the summit meeting between President Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev was momentous, resulting in Nixon and Brezhnev signing the Threshold Test Ban Treaty on July 3, 1974. While the leaders of the superpowers were making history, the crew managed to see some sites in Moscow. “The other press plane crew was TWA, and they were a fun group,” White said. “We were always together during sightseeing tours, which were specially organized. No wandering allowed. We could only visit approved sites and shop in government-run stores.”
July 3, 1974 – President Richard M. Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviiet Union, sign the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (Photograph from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency)
A press trip in late November 1963, however, was unlike any other. “The day of the Kennedy assassination was the most traumatic of my life,” Pigmans recalls. “The crew was inside the terminal in a restaurant having a late lunch when an announcement came over the loudspeaker that we were to return to our aircraft immediately. We saw Vice President Johnson and Lady Bird arrive and board the plane. Everything was rush, rush, rush…they had to get back to Washington.”
November 22, 1963, Love Field, Dallas, Texas – U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy disembarking Air Force One for a visit to Dallas.
Photograph by Dean L. Pace, courtesy of University of North Texas Libraries, the Portal to Texas History, crediting the Dallas Firefighters Museum.
“What I remember most about that experience,” Riley said, “was that the flight back that night was completely and utterly silent. No typewriters going, no nothing. The press just loved Kennedy. This was an incredible blow to them and they were devastated. Everyone was just…stunned.”
While the schedules could be erratic, the flight attendants who were fortunate to work press charters have fond memories of witnessing history take place. “No one complained,” said Irene Lindbeck Tibbits, who flew the charters for seven years during the Carter through Reagan administrations. “Everything we’d seen during the day was being reported on the evening news and in the morning papers.”
Tibbets at a reception in Lisbon during President Reagan’s 1985 State visit. Shaking hand with the First Lady, she admired her earrings. “They’re fake!,” Mrs. Reagan exclaimed conspiratorially.
During Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign in the fall of 1980, the travel schedule was intense; Air Force One and the press charter plane stopped numerous times a day. Toward the end of the campaign, both crew and journalists welcomed a two-night stay in Chicago. Irene Tibbits recalls they “landed in the evening, went to the airport hotel disco, and stayed up late, thinking we could sleep in the next morning – but it was not to be.”
At 4:00 a.m. everyone was awakened to get ready to quickly depart. A report had been received that the American hostages held captive in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran were about to be released, and President Carter needed to return to Washington immediately. “It was a mad scramble to get us all out the door as fast as possible,” Tibbits said. “We were just so thrilled about the hostages. Sadly, it turned out to be a false alarm.”
The following January, the crew’s disappointment turned to joy: The 52 hostages had finally been released. They were to be welcomed by former President Jimmy Carter, upon request by newly sworn-in President Ronald Reagan. The press plane flew into Frankfurt, and the crew was given the opportunity to be driven directly to the U.S. Air Force Hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany, where the hostages were undergoing medical checkups.
Still in uniform, they waited patiently outside the hospital on that frigid night, tired and rumpled, hoping the hostages would eventually show themselves in the windows and balconies of the hospital. “When they finally did,” she said, “we cheered and clapped. We waved and we cried. It was overwhelming. The chills and cold feet were worth it. We wanted them to know how glad we were that they were coming home.”
Former President Jimmy Carter waves to a cheering crowd after arriving at Rhein-Main Air Base, West Germany, on January 21, 1981, welcoming the 52 freed American hostages. (U.S. Historical archives)
The White House press charters are now a thing of the past. Journalists no longer fly in the lap of luxury with first class service. Today, just a few top reporters aboard Air Force One share news with other media outlets. For several decades, however, Pan Am was an integral participant in the chronicle of the day: Pan Am Clippers, veteran pilots, and professional flight attendants proudly accompanied U.S. presidents in the unfolding of world events.
“We were honored to have been part of these history-making journeys,” Pigmans said. “The White House Press Charters were a wonderful way to show people in Washington and the world what a great airline Pan Am was, and how we had the very best people working with us.”
To read more about Pan Am press charters, see Pan American World Airways Aviation History Through the Words of its People, by James P. Baldwin and Jeff Kriendler.
— Primary authors:
Dian Groh, Rebecca Sprecher
